Le Tombeau de Couperin

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Title page of the composition drawn by Ravel himself, published by the music publisher Jacques Durand & Cie, Paris 1918

Le Tombeau de Couperin. Suite pour piano (German: Couperin's tomb ) is a piano piece in six movements by Maurice Ravel . The composer began it in July 1914, and it was completed in 1917. The movements of this piano suite are each dedicated to a comrade in the First World War , the last movement to the musicologist and critic Joseph de Marliave, who died in 1914 . The title of the suite with its baroque and sometimes courtly dance forms refers to the works of the French composer François Couperin (1668–1733).

history

Maurice Ravel stayed in Saint-Jean-de-Luz in 1914, as he usually does every summer . It was here that he conceived his music, including a piece which he initially called Vienna and which later became known as La Valse , but also music for piano that was to have old baroque French dances as its theme. It was a creative phase in which other pieces such as the trio for violin, cello and piano were created. On October 1, 1914, he wrote to his friend and former pupil Roland-Manuel that he would write a French suite : “The ' Marseillaise' will not appear in it, but there will be a forlane, a gigue ; but no tango. ”In the period shortly before the First World War, the Tango Argentino began to become fashionable in Europe. The then Pope Pius X , however, found this dance to be offensive and put it on the index . Instead of dancing the tango, people should rather revive the ancient Friulian dance furlana . Pius X also came from Friuli . As a result, trivial, simple baroque dances temporarily had a certain popularity. Later a scientific article appeared in the journal Revue musicale by Jules Écorcheville , which was accompanied by the sheet music example of such a baroque furlana or forlane by François Couperin. In the article, Écorcheville demonstrated that the historical forlane was mainly danced by courtesans and that it had erotic elements.

Ravel was inspired by this and began his composition in the same year, which, among other things, was based on the Couperinsche Forlane from the Concerts Royaux IV . In French baroque music , the word tombeau was mainly used to describe funeral music for deceased musicians, and Maurice Ravel refers to this in his work. He did not regard it as a homage to François Couperin alone, but for all of French music of the 18th century. During the First World War he volunteered as a truck driver in 1915 and was released from the front line in 1917 . He was only able to complete the piece this year. The first five movements are each dedicated to a comrade of Ravel who died in the war. The last, a toccata , but to a soldier who died on August 24, 1914, the musicologist and critic Joseph de Marliave, a well-known connoisseur of Ludwig van Beethoven's string quartets and husband of the pianist Marguerite Long , who Ravel knew well. Ravel had already planned the plant before his war experience. In 1919 Ravel wrote a four-movement orchestral version of the suite. Another version, consisting of three movements, he wrote in 1920 for the Royal Swedish Ballet .

The original piano version was premiered by Marguerite Long on April 11, 1919 in the hall of the Parisian piano manufacturer Gaveau . It was a great success, the pianist had to repeat the whole piece as an encore.

Dedications of the sentences

In memory of ( à la mémoire du ... ):

  1. Prelude - Lieutenant Jacques Charlot, a cousin of Jacques Durand, Ravel's music publisher.
  2. Fugue - Lieutenant Jean Cruppi, for whose mother Ravel had composed the opera The Spanish Hour .
  3. Forlane - Lieutenant Gabriel Deluc, a Basque painter from Saint-Jean-de-Luz .
  4. Rigaudon - the brothers Pascal and Pierre Gaudin, childhood friends of Ravel, who died at the same time in the war in 1914.
  5. Menuet - Jean Dreyfus, with whose family Ravel recovered after being discharged from military service. Jean was the stepson of Madame Fernand Dreyfus, who took care of him after the death of Ravel's mother.
  6. Toccata - Joseph de Marliave, musicologist who was married to pianist Marguerite Long and was a friend of Gabriel Fauré .

Musical structure

The work was written for two-handed piano and contains six originally baroque dances. Ravel was inspired by a forlane from the Concerts royaux IV by François Couperin. With contemporary harmony and impressionistic timbres, he created a dance suite that, despite the retrospectively added memories of fallen war comrades, is not pure funeral music.

In 1919 Ravel began to create an orchestral version with four movements of the suite: Prelude, vif; Forlane, allegretto; Menuet, allegro moderato and Rigaudon, assez vif . The wind instruments consist of a piccolo , two transverse flutes , two oboes , an English horn , two clarinets , two bassoons , two horns and a trumpet . The strings consist of first and second violins , violas , cellos and double basses . A harp is also provided. This orchestral version was published on February 28, 1920.

The first movement, the prelude , bears the tempo designation vif (lively), and Ravel sets the value = 92 for the metronome.noire pointée The dotted quarter note should therefore be struck 92 times per minute. The key is E minor , a key that is often associated with mourning. A 12 / 16 clock runs through the entire set. Without repetitions, the prelude consists of 97 bars. The dynamic moves between Music dynamic pianissimo.svg( pianissimo ) and Music dynamic forte.svg( forte ).

The Fugue as the second movement of the piece is 4 / 4 set -Stroke, even here there is the key of E minor before. Ravel prescribes an Allegro moderato (“moderately fast”) as the tempo . The metronome strikes the quarter note 84 times per minute ( noire= 84). The fugue has 61 bars and the pitch varies between Music dynamic pianissimo.svg( pianissimo ) and Music dynamic mezzo forte.svg( mezzoforte ). According to the musicologist Siegfried Schmalzriedt , in this traditionally composed fugue Ravel alludes ironically to the fact that he never received the Rome Prize of the Paris Conservatory, which is very important for musicians , although he was favored for it.

The third movement, a forlane whose original inspired by Couperin Ravel to this work has a distinctive dance syncopated rhythm in 6 / 8 -Stroke. It should be played at the Allegretto tempo (slower than the fugue ) with the metronome number noire pointée= 96. In this rather cheerful dance movement, too, the key begins with E minor, which here conveys less sadness than melancholy. Later she temporarily changes to E major in a few bars. The forlane extends (without the repetitions) over 162 bars. In this sentence, Ravel succeeds in depicting a connection between the primitive and the new and the archaic with the modern.

The Rigaudon is originally a cheerful and fast southern French folk dance in a straight beat. Ravel is this a 2 / 4 -Stroke which assez vif to be presented, "quite lively". This sentence does not have a metromom. Not everything is cheerful in this dance, the impressionistic thoughtfulness appears, even if only briefly, in this piece, which is initially in the key of C major. Atmospheric folk dances usually require loud music, so Ravel writes for the rigaudon a Music dynamic fortissimo.svg( fortissimo ) for the parts of the dance, which exist in C major. But in the middle part of the dance the music becomes more lyrical. The key changes to C minor , the tempo slows down ( moins vif , “less lively”) and the tone strength decreases to one Music dynamic pianissimo.svg( pianissimo ) and Ravel tells the pianist to press the damper pedal ( sourdine ). The Rigaudon has 128 bars. François Couperin composed a Rigaudon in 1713 for his first book, the Pièces de clavecin , to which Ravel's piece is similar in its rhythm.

The fifth movement, the minuet is in the 3 / 4 - set clock. The minuet is a rather calm courtly dance, which Ravel performs at a steady tempo noire= 92. An Allegro moderato is also noted as the tempo on the sheet of music . The initial key G major goes after 32 clocks, which are repeated by G minor above. The piece is quiet throughout and has a total of 128 bars. Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt wrote about the menuet : "Behind the bright, playful movement of these dances [...] there is a deeply painful, even tragic feeling."

The final movement, the Toccata , with the tempo mark vif and the metronome value noire= 144, the quickest and most spirited piece of the suite in a 2 / 4 - stroke and the initial key e Minor. Towards the end it goes first to F sharp major , then to E major. The dynamic ranges from an initial Music dynamic pianissimo.svg( pianissimo ) to a Music dynamic fortissimo.svg( fortissimo ). The toccata extends over 253 bars.

Ravel used the Etudes d'exécution transcendante by Franz Liszt as inspiration for this sentence . The baroque in Ravel's music is here replaced by the music of the romantic to give the Tombeau de Couperin an appropriate conclusion. He wanted to give the pianist Marguerite Long the opportunity to perform a brilliant virtuoso piece at the end. He himself usually never spoke about his music, but he thought this toccata was perfect. In the orchestral suite that was created later, the toccata contains a few fruitist sound elements towards the end .

The playing time of all six movements of the composition is about 26 minutes.

literature

  • Maurice Ravel: Le tombeau de Couperin . Jacques Durand, Paris 1918, OCLC 949811693 .
  • Cecilia Dunoyer: Le Tombeau de Couperin . In: Marguerite Long: A Life in French Music, 1874–1966 . Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1993, ISBN 0-253-31839-4 , pp. 80 (English, books.google.de ).
  • R. Beyer: Maurice Ravel's orchestral suite “Le Tombeau de Couperin” . In: The orchestra . tape 46 , no. 4 . Schott, Mainz 1998, OCLC 203009651 , p. 19-26 .
  • Maurice Ravel, Nancy Bricard: Le Tombeau de Couperin: Advanced Piano Collection (=  Alfred Masterwork Edition ). Alfred Music, 2005, ISBN 1-4574-1121-0 , pp. 6–15 (English, books.google.de ).
  • Siegfried Schmalzriedt : Ravel's piano music. A musical factory guide . CH Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-44810-0 , p. 76 ff . ( books.google.de - Limited preview).
  • Jillian Rogers: Mourning at the Piano: Marguerite Long, Maurice Ravel, and the Performance of Grief in Interwar France . In: transposition. Musique et Sciences Sociales . No. 4 , July 15, 2014, doi : 10.4000 / transposition.739 (English).

The composer Olivier Messiaen provided a detailed musicological analysis of the work, especially the harmonics used in it . His student and future wife, the pianist Yvonne Loriod , added to the work and brought it out in 2003:

  • Olivier Messiaen, Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen: Ravel. Analyzes of the œuvres pour piano de Maurice Ravel. Durand Editions Musicales, Paris 2003, ISBN 978-0-634-08036-4 . P. 85 ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Volker Helbing: The Pope and the dancers. Article in the journal of the Society for Music Theory.
  2. ^ Paul Roberts: Reflections. The Piano Music of Maurice Ravel. Amadeus Press, Milwaukee 2012, ISBN 978-1-57467-202-2 , p. 107 ff.
  3. ↑ Björn Gottstein: "... to all French music of the 18th century." Maurice Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin. Suite for orchestra (1914–17) . In: Deutschlandradio Kultur . January 17, 2012 ( deutschlandradiokultur.de ).
  4. ↑ Chamber music guide of the Villa Musica.
  5. ^ Siegfried Schmalzriedt : Ravel's piano music. A musical factory guide. CH Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-406-44810-2 , p. 76 ff.
  6. ↑ Internet site data.bnf.fr
  7. ↑ Rainer Schmitz, Benno Ure: Keys, tones and tumults: Everything you don't know about music . Siedler Verlag, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-641-19119-1 , p. 519 ( books.google.de ).
  8. ↑ Website maurice-ravel.net ( memento of the original from March 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.maurice-ravel.net
  9. ^ Siegfried Schmalzriedt: Ravel's piano music. A musical factory guide. Munich 2006, p. 79.
  10. ^ Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt: Maurice Ravel - Variations on Person and Work. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1966, p. 216 ff.
  11. ^ Siegfried Schmalzriedt: Ravel's piano music. A musical factory guide. Munich 2006, p. 83 f.
  12. ↑ Maurice Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin. suite d'Orchestre . Breitkopf & Härtel, Partitur-Bibliothek 5540, foreword by Jean-François Monnard 2015, p. VIII.